The Irish Scissor Sisters (42 page)

Judge Carney was clearly displeased and said he wasn’t going to deal with any application until the case had been called, but warned that the State had had enough time to arrange for anybody who was needed in court to be there. He stressed that he wanted to see the case finished with that day: ‘The matter is in for today and is proceeding today.’

The unexpected application by the prosecution caused panic among the journalists who were faced with the potential of seeing a two-month delay in sentencing. A number of other cases were then called before the Mulhalls were led into the courtroom by two prison guards at 12.25 p.m. The women sat at benches beside the dock, preparing themselves for the next few minutes when the judge would sentence them for their heinous crime. But there was a another delay. Brendan Grehan, Linda’s senior counsel, was not in court when the case was called because he was also representing Padraig Nally. His junior was not present either, which led a furious Judge Carney to remark: ‘He has been provided by the taxpayer to cover Mr Grehan in his absences. Well we will just have to wait until one of them appears.’

After ten long and tense minutes, the clearly unimpressed Judge adjourned the case for twenty-five minutes until Mr Grehan had finished his official business in the adjoining courtroom. During the delay Linda chatted with a man who came to see her from the public gallery. They whispered in each other’s ears and laughed occasionally. She also had a lengthy talk with two of her defence team and seemed relaxed and in good spirits. Charlotte on the other hand, was far quieter and spoke just once to a prison guard, hugged her and smiled weakly. Otherwise she slouched in her seat, putting her left hand on her face and staring at the ground, while sometimes playing with a wristband on her right arm. She’d occasionally look up and stare around her, fidgeting with a yellow lighter and picking at her long nails. Neither of the defendants was handcuffed in the courtroom and just one prison officer watched over them.

Ireland’s most respected, experienced – and feared – criminal judge returned to his courtroom at 12.45 p.m. on the button. He began by saying that the Farah Swaleh Noor murder was ‘the most grotesque case of killing’ that he had ever experienced in his professional lifetime. He said that this was only the third case in Irish legal history involving the mutilation of the victim in such a horrific manner. The others were the notorious case of South African medical student Shan Mohangi in 1963 and double killer Michael Bambrick, who murdered and mutilated two women after macabre sex sessions, and was sentenced to eighteen years for the double manslaughter in 1996.

Sergeant Liam Hickey gave evidence for An Garda Síochána and told the court that Charlotte and Linda Mulhall had attacked and murdered Farah Swaleh Noor after the Kenyan made advances on Linda and called her a ‘creature of the night’. He detailed how the pair had mutilated the body and cut it into eight pieces before dumping it in the Royal Canal and disposing of the head and murder weapons at Sean Walsh Park, in Tallaght. Sgt Hickey accepted that the women had been co-operative with the gardaí once they had owned up to the killings and said that Linda had shown genuine remorse for what she had done.

Linda’s counsel, Brendan Grehan, said that she had made a number of attempts to harm herself since the Noor murder and had cut her arms on two occasions. She had spent ten days in a psychiatric hospital just days before the trial started and was taking heroin and drinking up to three bottles of vodka a day. Mr Grehan said that she was a good mother and he pleaded for leniency.

Mr Justice Carney did not agree, however, and immediately sentenced her to fifteen years’ imprisonment, to gasps of surprise from the courtroom. He said he had the option of jailing her for life but had to respect the decision of the jury to allow the defence of provocation. He would have sentenced her to eighteen years in jail but for the fact that she had helped point out various scenes to detectives and had assisted the investigation. He said he was not persuaded by arguments put forward by her defence counsel that she was a good mother to her four children, saying, ‘As far as you’ve urged on me that she is a good mother, I don’t regard this as particularly persuasive. If she was a good mother she would not have got herself into a situation of this kind.’ Judge Carney also pointed out that Linda had attempted to postpone or delay the opening of the trial by going cold turkey in an attempt to get off drink and drugs.

Linda, who had previously stared impassively at the floor while the evidence was heard, sobbed into her hands as the realisation dawned that she would not see her children as a free woman for at least ten more years. Charlotte held Linda’s hand as her sister’s sentence was handed down.

For the most part Charlotte Mulhall sat motionless during the hour-long hearing, choosing a spot on the wall and staring straight at it. Her cold demeanour and casual attitude had been a trademark of the trial and she was not about to change it now. She had known that she wouldn’t see the outside world as a free woman for many years and didn’t display any emotion when she was formally sentenced to life imprisonment. ‘As far as Charlotte is concerned the sentence is a mandatory one of imprisonment for life,’ said the judge.

When Judge Carney left his court, the media ran outside to file early copy while the Scissor Sisters were led to the awaiting van and transported back to their home for the foreseeable future. Linda sobbed and clutched a packet of tissues. The tears running down her face left streaks in her heavy mascara. Charlotte said nothing. Her black eye-make-up remained exactly the same as it had been when she put it on five hours earlier.

Outside the courtroom Detective Superintendent John McKeown said: ‘The Garda Síochána are pleased with the outcome and the sentences. I would like to extend my sympathies to the family of Mr Noor, his mother and his wife, and extend our thanks to members of the public who came forward to help us with our investigation.’

In the days following sentencing Linda Mulhall was said by prison sources to be devastated at her fifteen-year term. A decision was made by the prison authorities to monitor her, to make sure she didn’t attempt suicide. She spent days lying on her bed sobbing and was heard to mutter ‘fifteen years, fifteen years’ repeatedly. Her jail friends became very worried for her mental health. Linda really did not expect fifteen years for a murder she truly believed she had carried out to protect herself. It was weeks before she accepted her fate and got on with prison life.

Just two days after Judge Carney handed down what was generally agreed to be a harsh sentence, lawyers for Linda lodged an appeal against the severity of the sentence to the Court of Criminal Appeal. The three-judge court would rule in 2007 and would have the option of decreasing the sentence, although they could also add to it, if they felt that fifteen years was too lenient.

Linda gradually came to terms with her punishment and realised that there was nothing she could do to change it. She started studying behind bars and hoped to complete her Leaving Certificate for the first time, as she dropped out of school at a young age. She also began taking classes in woodwork and jewellery-making and learned how to make handbags and purses in the leatherwork classes. Charlotte also attended these classes and the two were rarely apart and tended to do the same activities. Prison sources said that Linda showed a good aptitude for the classes and was good with her hands. She was also said to be a ‘clean freak’, who spends hours making sure that her room is spotless. Linda had also expressed an interest in doing a FÁS course in beauty therapy and began the course in late 2007. She became friendlier towards her fellow prisoners and mixed more freely. There were even media reports that she had found God and was wearing rosary beads, reciting decades of the rosary each day. Whether this was true or not, the visits from her four children are said to get Linda through each week and she brags to the other women about how well her children are doing in school.

While Linda was trying to come to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t walk free until at least 2017, it was business as usual for Charlotte. Prison officers said there was no change in her demeanour. She still mixed freely with her fellow prisoners and seemed resigned to her fate. Charlotte’s behaviour while she was out on bail, however, was still keeping her solicitors in business. A few days after the sentencing, on 7 December, Charlotte was fined €100 in her absence at Dublin District Court for being drunk while caring for a child on the 77 bus, in Tallaght. Her legal representative, Michael Kelleher, pleaded guilty on her behalf to being drunk and a danger to herself on 10 September 2006. The court heard that a fellow passenger became alarmed when they saw Charlotte in a drunken state on the bus while she was minding a young child. The driver called the gardaí and Garda Robert Elliot from Tallaght Station said he arrived on the 77 to find her very drunk. ‘She had a small child with her and I believed she was intoxicated to such an extent to be a danger to herself,’ Garda Elliot told Judge Bryan Smyth. She was arrested for her own safety and taken to the garda station and released when she sobered up. Her solicitor said there was not much he could say about Charlotte’s case except that she was very drunk at the time.

Judge Smyth imposed a seven-day prison sentence in default of her paying the €100 fine and agreed to a request that the fine could be paid immediately, so that the default penalty could be served as part of her life sentence. Like her sister, Charlotte’s solicitors also lodged an appeal against her murder conviction, so she would get to argue her case again in the Court of Criminal Appeal.

Charlotte’s mind was also occupied with the future of her then eight-month-old son. She made an application to look after him in prison and this is allowed in certain circumstances. Following her conviction, the infant was taken into care by social workers. He was sent temporarily to a foster family but Charlotte was unhappy with this and was said to miss her first-born child. She was interviewed by social workers to assess her suitability for caring for a child in jail. Newborn babies are generally only permitted to be with their mothers in jail when they are being breast-fed. The child then undergoes a medical examination by a doctor when he or she is nine months old to see if this is still necessary. Charlotte was not breast-feeding her son so this didn’t apply to her. There was no medical reason why the baby should be taken away from a caring foster family and moved to an environment where he would be surrounded by murderers and drug dealers. It is very unusual to have children in a prison environment after they go beyond a maximum of twelve months and the Prison Service does not encourage the practice. A spokesperson said: ‘It is the view of the Irish Prison Service that prison is a completely inappropriate environment for infants.’ Despite this a deal was agreed at the Dolphin House Family Court in December 2006 to allow Charlotte to look after her son for a few hours each day. She was transferred to Elm House, the child-care facility within the prison that houses up to eighteen infants at any one time.

Charlotte began seeing her son before Christmas and was said by prison staff to be a very good mother who was devoted to the baby. As a report by a senior prison officer in 2001 had found that the Dóchas Centre was riddled with drugs, she had to undergo regular drugs tests as part of the agreement and passed each one. Charlotte was apparently revelling in looking after her child each day but it lasted only until 28 May 2007, when the baby turned one.

Both women have succumbed to the demon drink while in the Dóchas Centre. On 21 February 2007 prison officers spotted Linda and Charlotte acting suspiciously by the prison boundary walls and kept them under surveillance. Two large plastic bottles were thrown over the wall from outside the jail. Officers confiscated the bottles. It was found that they contained vodka. Both women admitted being in possession of the drink and it is believed that they were subject to internal disciplinary procedures but the results were never made public. Three weeks before the vodka incident a member of the public was caught attempting to pass alcohol to Linda and it was also confiscated by prison officers. No disciplinary action was taken but prison sources said that the officers keep a close eye on both women to make sure that they do not get their hands on either drink or drugs.